Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a Strategist episode 1842. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey
Zain
0:07
Corey Hogan. Carter, I see your Team Canada pride.
Carter
0:10
Yeah, yeah, this is just trying to stay warm in the house, Zain. Heather keeps the house at a balmy 62 degrees. It's the same temperature that we keep Corey's drinks at.
Zain
0:22
That's right. Why are you using Fahrenheit?
Carter
0:25
Because I'm old. Pride is a sin,
Carter
0:26
Yeah, because I'm old.
Zain
0:27
old. Because you're old? That's why you're using Fahrenheit? well
Carter
0:29
my back is sore today too so i'm kind of i literally
Zain
0:32
literally just said you're part of team canada then you told me the temperature in your home in fahrenheit you're real it's like cell phone in
Corey
0:39
in the first minute of the podcast you guys don't actually use fahrenheit when you're setting the time no
Zain
0:42
no do you actually
Zain
0:43
yeah we do on your on your nest why i assume you have a nest do you see you seem rich enough to have a nest sorry what's a nest i'm quite poor and i have one i also have a 2005 corolla so what
Zain
0:55
what do you what do you use for is it
Carter
0:56
it owned by elon i don't know i don't know If it's not owned by Elon, I don't want it. Seems like you're trying to get out of the situation.
Zain
1:02
Corey, we've got a lot to discuss. Do you want to lay out the agenda, or should I lay out the agenda?
Corey
1:07
Yeah, so first of all, we've got the Fahrenheit thing, which we need to dig into. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corey
1:12
And then we're going to follow that up, I think, with a little bit of a review of the drama in Ottawa. Maybe we talk about America. I don't know. You tell me. There was a by-election. I actually want to revisit Top Melons. You're in a whole province of Alberta.
Corey
1:22
Top Melons. Top Melons. Good idea. That's
Carter
1:25
That's good stuff. I've
Corey
1:25
I've got to tell you, we've had a lot of domains come up for renewal in the past month.
Corey
1:31
that tells me that a year ago, we were going pretty domain heavy, and we've slid. Well,
Corey
1:36
money in our pocket, but we'll find a way to – we'll find a way. No, it doesn't, Zane, because we renewed all of those domains. Oh,
Zain
1:43
You said they came up. You didn't actually say you renewed them. You said the renewals came up. They're all auto-renewed.
Zain
1:48
You almost implied. They're
Zain
1:49
valuable assets now in the company. Can you have the list in front of you? Can you walk us down some of the most – I could,
Corey
1:54
could, we've done, you know what? We did that around this time last year and that's how we ended up with so many more domains. Well,
Zain
1:59
Well, can you just, okay. I know, I know in this particular case, you've said most have been auto-renewed, which is the rich man's way of renewing domains. You know, when you're poor, you
Corey
2:08
you actually manually renew, but we're doing
Corey
2:11
You're paying for them with 7-Eleven gift cards, honestly. Absolutely. At some point during this episode, can you pull up the list and we can do a review? Yeah, next time Steven talks, I think we can do that. Can we have a list?
Zain
2:23
list? Okay, Corey, where's that list? We just had a word by Stephen Carter. Carter, I'll talk to you for a second.
Carter
2:32
Yeah, no one cares about my back pain. No one cares about how much pain I have. No,
Zain
2:35
No, no one. And I still am doing this show. No, the Fahrenheit thing is still on our mind. There's so many things to discuss, but I want to go down the domain rabbit hole, Stephen Carter, because that's what matters the most. I
Carter
2:46
I thought we were going to do DQ. I'm a little disappointed. we haven't
Zain
2:48
haven't done dq since we did dq i don't know why you keep talking about it like it's a theme of this show i
Carter
2:53
i i keep waiting i keep waiting you know you know what i
Zain
2:56
i also i also keep waiting because there's nothing fucking there cory there's nothing beside that that safeway i
Corey
3:02
i know it's an empty hole it's really
Corey
3:03
upsetting which which is what i used to call the dq but well and and the federal government is floating a vacant land tax so look at us bridging seamlessly into topical events oh well that's fantastic cory
Zain
3:14
cory cory's pulling up do you have the domain names or do Do you want me to keep going?
Corey
3:17
Yeah, we got showdave.ca. Zane, do you know that this company owns zanevelji.ca? Were you aware of that? Is that actually
Corey
3:25
That is true, yeah. Wait,
Corey
3:27
I thought my wife... Oh, that one.
Corey
3:30
Maybe she did at one point, but she let it lapse, my friend.
Corey
3:33
And your shithead friends got it instead. That's actually very
Corey
3:42
If he ever decides
Corey
3:43
decides to run again.
Zain
3:44
Or any Elnur. In
Zain
3:45
In fact, actually, this is actually really helpful. If there is any Eldor who wants to run for mayor. That's true. We're going to give you that one, and we're going to give you
Zain
3:53
you ZaneVelge.com, actually. If you're an Eldor,
Zain
3:55
we're going to give you both
Corey
3:56
both of them. This list is not really in order, but Canada.org.NewZealand we own. It makes a
Corey
4:03
a lot of sense.
Zain
4:06
Why do we own that, and why is that so perfect?
Corey
4:11
I couldn't tell you, but we do. Wait,
Zain
4:14
it .NZ or .NewZealand? .NZ, yeah, .NZ. We
Corey
4:26
How do we not? That
Zain
4:27
That almost seems illegal.
Corey
4:30
That seems borderline illegal. I think that's, listen, in the age of Trump, that is a very valuable domain. That might be our best domain. Canada.org
Zain
4:39
That's pretty good. Okay, keep
Corey
4:42
keep going. I put the pictures
Carter
4:42
pictures from my trip up on that one. Yeah, we got,
Corey
4:46
good. Carter's Google photo album.
Corey
4:48
We got Pierre Does Housing. We got housinghill.ca. Oh, this is a good one. This will bring you back to memory lane here. We've got davidcameronpig.ca. Oh, no.
Corey
4:58
Dot CA. I like we localized it. And davidcameronpig.co. Oh, good. Okay, good. Good. Keep it alive.
Corey
5:05
Oh, no. Fly flair, but flair spelled F-L-A-R-E. Oh, my God. The fact that they
Zain
5:09
they have not approached us for that domain is insane.
Corey
5:13
Zane, I don't know what we were doing when we registered sniffyourimpotence.ca, but we got that, too. Sounds like a Stephen Carter thing.
Corey
5:18
Sounds like something Carter would have said. Hey!
Corey
5:22
So far, I don't see anything not for you. Of course.
Corey
5:26
There's a lot here, actually. Like, November was a pretty busy time for renewals. November of, like, 23. Okay, good, good, good.
Corey
5:33
Actually, do you know
Corey
5:34
know we own ucpconvention.com? That's real. Do we really own .com? Yeah, we do.
Carter
5:40
did we not use that?
Corey
5:42
have no idea we should have used that
Carter
5:43
that would have been epic but
Corey
5:45
but our shield the most important one that we have in case when we are audited all of this of course is the cra is politically motivated dot ca uh
Corey
5:55
do we still own it this is very important
Corey
5:57
important west of center dot ca
Corey
5:59
we do we also own trudeau is fucking you dot ca okay
Carter
6:03
we own that yeah
Carter
6:05
we do that's good yeah That's good. We should maybe make that known to the PMO.
Carter
6:12
That's a very popular one.
Corey
6:14
Does that still lead to the calendar invite?
Corey
6:19
Which just happened, I think, a couple of days ago. cartersmonthlynut.com. And many variants of Brett Andrew. I'm skipping over a lot, too. No, no, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We
Corey
6:28
We do all of these, by the way.
Corey
6:30
Of course. I know you're asking for the chair's approval. uh we uh yeah we do own curse of politics.com oh my god you own.com
Corey
6:39
let's see what's the one yeah oh that's good and of
Corey
6:43
of course we own west of center.ca yeah that's
Corey
6:48
you know the list goes on guys but i think we've probably spent enough time amusing ourselves on this however yeah you
Corey
6:53
you got one more no
Corey
6:55
no i think we can we can add to this list this today which
Zain
6:58
however, we should be adding to this list.
Zain
7:01
Yeah, that's good. I like that. I
Carter
7:02
I don't think so. I'd like to put some money in my pocket.
Carter
7:06
But, you know, you guys are crazy.
Corey
7:10
a pretty significant line item for promotions at the Strategist Media Corporation.
Carter
7:15
Yeah, and practical jokes.
Zain
7:18
No, it's good. If we were a charity, we would not pass any sort of test. And then, of course, we would claim that the CRA is politically motivated.
Zain
7:26
Which you can find...
Corey
7:26
find... I read it on a website. You can find
Zain
7:27
find out our charitable license and yearly report on that website. Corey Hogan, let's get it started. Let me actually, let me do this. Let me not bury the lead. Let's talk about Justin Trudeau and give me some quick takes so I can get a sense of where you guys are at. Okay?
Zain
7:45
Yeah. Let's start here. Carter, let's just do it. It's a lightning round at the top of the show in
Zain
7:50
in a way. Carter, is he gone? Is he going tomorrow?
Zain
7:55
Friday. Friday. Corey, is he going tomorrow?
Corey
7:57
No, not tomorrow. There's
Zain
7:59
There's a rumor that he's going on Monday. Corey, is he going on Monday?
Zain
8:02
I would have thought maybe. Interesting. I thought that was
Zain
8:06
also going to be a pure no. Okay, tell me why. No, no, no. Okay, well, listen.
Corey
8:09
listen. I thought maybe yesterday when I first heard this rumor myself, because
Corey
8:14
because the consensus had shifted to Ottawa to, you know, as we got all the reporting, as we heard from people who were in the room, as we heard from people who were next to people in the room, there seemed to be a sense that at the caucus meeting and carter i mean you tell me what you've heard too but i've shared this with you guys i guess i'll share it with our audience here there seemed to be a sense like oh man that was a rough caucus meeting for him he got it he heard us he basically pleaded
Corey
8:39
pleaded is too strong i'm now embellishing myself but he said message received look don't take this outside of the room i heard you the
Corey
8:47
the implication being i need a little bit of space here and um you know and then we'll come to a conclusion and i
Corey
8:54
think most people who are in that meeting who left that room at least the the ones that i've talked to or talked to people i've talked to were like he's going it's just a matter of time it's just a matter of when it's all about time perhaps how
Corey
9:05
exactly and of course that was before even the absolute drubbing that occurred in the by-election that night on monday night that we should probably talk to about too which Which amazingly, in all this drama, is almost lost. Like nobody's talking about the fact that the Liberals lost an old seat. 50 points lost in a seat, yeah. 50 points.
Corey
9:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, there was the awkward Laurier Club dinner that night. There's all sorts of stuff, right? And I think people got the sense, yeah, it's happening. So if you'd asked me yesterday, I
Corey
9:36
I thought it was happening anyways. Why not Monday? Monday makes as much sense in any day. Hey, it's giving Canadians what they want for Christmas, right? Yeah.
Corey
9:43
His resignation. nation but um no
Corey
9:46
no as we started to get all of the leaks and the reporting around the cabinet shuffle that's happening tomorrow yeah it's
Corey
9:53
it's given me a lot of pause because well it's certainly true that the cabinet had a ton of holes in it that needed to be filled like you can't have so many people doing double duty you can't have so many vacant portfolios you got to fill them and frankly your choices are fill them before you announce you're resigning or after you're going to do it before That still makes sense to me, and we can maybe unpack that. But the way it's being filled, and the nature of it, and the conversation around it, and some of the commentary from people like Dominic LeBlanc saying, no, I'm going to be finance minister until the election. On one hand, of course, that's what you're going to say. That's what you have to say. But on the other hand, you
Corey
10:29
don't have to say it. You know, nobody held a gun to your head on this one. You could say, listen, I serve at the pleasure of the leader.
Corey
10:35
How's that for an answer that you can use? That's a pretty standard
Corey
10:39
And instead, he said, I'm going to do this. Because Trudeau told me I'm doing this to the election, which is a very different answer. And it starts to put a bit of doubt out there. And I don't know, if I was caucus, I'd maybe start thinking, maybe he was just getting through the day. Maybe Canada's most prominent drama teacher just
Corey
10:58
just put on a one man show.
Corey
11:01
carter is he gone on monday nope
Carter
11:03
nope he's not gone on monday uh i think that the you know for all the analysis that cory just gave and and uh pieces that i'm hearing as well it strikes me that that uh justin trudeau did what justin trudeau needed to do to survive the week he he put off He took his beating and now he's reasserting himself five days later as though nothing happened because there's never a second punch. You know, he gets hit with the Freeland stuff. And then instead of having, say, half of the parliamentary secretaries resign or half of the, I don't know, half
Carter
11:42
half the caucus leave. I mean, I don't even know.
Zain
11:44
Half the caucus leave that meeting in protest or some dramatic reincarnation of that. Sure. Fuck
Carter
11:50
Fuck this. I'm you know we don't trust you we don't trust your speak
Zain
11:54
speak to the speak to the cameras and the microphones that were lined up for their commentary coming out of that room as he went to the laureate club dinner for example instead
Carter
12:02
instead instead they heard him say give me some play space give me some time and what they didn't realize is what he was saying is give me all the space give me all the time and
Carter
12:11
and I will take it all because I'm going to continue to be the leader of this of
Carter
12:15
of this party until i completely flush it down the toilet um
Carter
12:18
um and that seems to be where he's headed he
Carter
12:21
he does not give a singular fuck uh about who he hurts along the way or what happens to the party along the way he has um drank the kool-aid and believes that he is the person who can
Carter
12:33
resurrect this party from the doldrums that he put the party into um
Carter
12:37
um so i'm i
Carter
12:40
i i don't know i'm i I'm pretty shocked, but I think he's actually more than survived. I think he's going to thrive
Carter
12:46
thrive through the cabinet shuffle tomorrow and put his new spin on cabinet. It will have zero impact in the polls, but it won't matter because Justin Trudeau is getting very comfortable being the prime minister with 20 points behind.
Zain
13:07
Corey, jump in here, and then I want to ask you guys about what Trudeau is teaching us here.
Corey
13:12
Yeah, well, I'm not as definitive as Stephen on this. I think that there's still a good possibility that he is. You sound less definitive, to
Zain
13:18
to be clear. Yeah, yeah.
Corey
13:20
Yeah, I also think that there is a reality in that when you make a big decision like this, doubt starts to set in, you might even start testing that wall and seeing if there's any faint hope you might be allowed to stay in the job that you're in here, right? Right. And and so you can consider this maybe just like almost like a jubilation
Corey
13:40
jubilation or that's not even the right word. Like he might just be saying, like, well, let's just see where this goes. Right. Like I was sure I was gone. I'm still probably gone. But let's see where this next day goes or whatnot. And if you are a member of that caucus or a member of the party and you don't want that, this is probably the moment where you
Corey
13:56
you need to kind of hit him hard behind the scenes. I don't think this is ahead of the scenes necessarily tomorrow, but it needs to be. Justin, this doesn't resolve my problems. I am just being very clear with you right now. This does not resolve my problems. Nothing I said to you on Monday has changed. Nothing that I felt on Monday has changed. I'm glad you've plugged the holes in the cabinet, but I want to be explicit with you. This doesn't change anything, right? And if then a couple of days later, there are still, you know, those wall testing indications, then you ratchet up the temperature. And to Stephen's point, point you
Corey
14:29
do need to be prepared to do the second punch like if by the time you're at the start of january there's indications that he's not going anywhere or maybe even strengthening his hold you've got to be prepared to sit as like an independent liberal right you've got to be prepared to resign from cabinet to resign your parliamentary secretary post to publicly speak out in ways that many of them have not to be clear yeah right like i'm talking about some extreme steps they haven't even taken some of the basic steps there they need to be prepared to boycott caucus meetings he's leading. They need to be prepared to do the next things. Because right now, they
Corey
15:04
they have trained Trudeau
Corey
15:05
Trudeau with a pattern of behavior of, oh, you know, we're really mad, Justin. Oh, we're talking about sending a letter, Justin. Caucus meeting. Oh, geez, guys, I hear you. Walk away, nothing happens. And
Zain
15:17
every time. Is there something to be said that this liberal caucus is doing more to undermine the liberal brand than Justin Trudeau in some ways?
Zain
15:25
I mean, I don't know if I would go that that yeah
Carter
15:27
no that's too far okay
Zain
15:30
it's an interesting point
Zain
15:30
point i know what you're saying they're projecting this sort of political weakness that yeah trudeau himself doesn't necessarily have in that same way
Corey
15:40
way one would argue i i would say that i think that they are actually by being weak prolonging and we and you know the damage is worse if they had been more forceful in august they'd be in a better position today let's be clear we're looking down the barrel of some some pretty shitty guns right now what are our choices if if trudeau leaves today he is a dead man walking in terms of any negotiation like when i say leave i mean leave as leader he's probably still prime minister till a new liberal
Corey
16:07
liberal leader is picked right he's going to negotiate with uh he's going to negotiate with trump he's going to negotiate with president elon musk as to what exactly is going to happen here i don't know i don't think that's going to work very well for us but that's probably still our best case scenario i mean we're just in a bad situation and in that sense i do think they've made the damage worse but in the way that you're implying i don't know i mean i think that they have shown a
Corey
16:31
a little bit of patience i also think that we're all frogs in water in that they've ratcheted up almost too slowly here if none if nothing had happened and now everything we know about the descent had spilled out on one day i actually think we'd think it's much more damning but because we've had a couple of voices a couple more voices It's just rumors of letters, rumors of letters growing, seeing the letter, blah, blah, blah. Having a big sort of confrontation
Zain
16:53
confrontation that led to nothing. Yeah.
Corey
16:55
Hasn't had the same effect. Carter, you know,
Zain
16:56
know, we talked about
Zain
16:57
Christopher Freeland teaching us a lot or providing a lot of strategic lessons for folks. What has Justin Trudeau taught us? Yes, he's got a weak internal opposition. No doubt about it. We've just been talking about it. But he's surviving and he's put his blinders on, put his head down and continues to be prime minister. minister like you know like in some ways the guy's going to execute a cabinet shuffle tomorrow and i shouldn't say in some ways he will we
Zain
17:23
we record tonight on thursday in case people don't know so we don't know the names per se and we've got some reporting but we don't have the results of that just yet in terms of how wide ranging it is but the guy's going to make a cabinet shuffle the guy's going to continue to do prime ministerial things what lessons is justin trudeau teaching us similarly to the lessons that krista freeland taught us strategically with her with her one page letter what do you think carter well
Carter
17:44
well i think the number one thing is that those in power like when you have power if you are prepared to use it if you are prepared to uh stand behind the power that you've been granted by your caucus and and use it uh you know as the leader or however you've gotten that power power
Carter
18:01
power matters and um
Carter
18:03
um getting you know getting rid of someone who has power power is
Carter
18:08
is way more challenging, I
Carter
18:11
I think, than anybody has ever thought. Like, there is no more
Carter
18:14
more resigning for the good of the party.
Carter
18:18
You know, I've got power. You don't have power. So fuck you. That seems to be the model that Justin Trudeau has employed. And you know what? It works pretty damn good. Are
Zain
18:27
Are you pretty impressed by that to some degree? Yes, he's down in the polls, but as like a a political strategic tool of of of service to oneself like
Zain
18:35
like as a practitioner are
Carter
18:37
pretty impressed by that
Carter
18:38
well what is you know what is the saying cory like a better a day is prime minister that you can accomplish more in a day as prime minister the
Corey
18:45
the worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition i mean so he's
Carter
18:49
he's he's got all of these days in government where he's in charge like there is no question that he's the guy running the whole fucking government. And he gets to do what he thinks is right. He
Carter
19:02
He doesn't have to worry about anybody
Carter
19:03
anybody else being offside or pushing back.
Carter
19:09
And that's a pretty great place to be if you're a big fan of dictatorial
Carter
19:12
dictatorial politics. And let's be honest, I am a big fan. So, you
Carter
19:19
you know, I mean, he's showing us and not telling us what
Carter
19:24
what it's like to have power and what it's like to deploy that power in
Carter
19:29
you know the most kind of uh
Carter
19:30
uh removed fashion from from
Carter
19:33
from uh the reality that uh the
Carter
19:36
the parties hit the skids cory
Zain
19:39
cory what is he teaching us here or has he taught us anything thus far
Corey
19:42
yeah a couple of lessons come immediately to mind for me one maybe i should make it the second one but i'm going to start here he's taught us there is no liberal party right it only justin trudeau He's recreated it to such an extent that there is no infrastructure to keep him in check because in a more functional political party, and this is true, by the way, of Donald Trump and the Republicans as well, but in a more functional political party, there are checks on the leader's authority. The leader's office is not so all-powerful. Ministers have authority that they're able to exert. They have a voice they're able to use. The party apparatus has an ability to step in and the executive can lay pressure on. Donors used to be able to lay pressure on. This is another one of those changes that is, I think, subtle and unappreciated. But when we went to grassroots donations like this, we've changed that particular check too, where large interests used to be able to come in and say, you know what, bud, no more. And not all good. I'll be the first to say that. But we've lost a check on the leader's power as well, when you no longer have donors who can move in and move their heft around. So there's no Liberal Party anymore. There is Justin Trudeau, and there's the apparatus that Justin Trudeau has created. So I think that's lesson one.
Corey
20:51
And that's an interesting lesson. Lesson two, though, and I think one that is probably more applicable across the board, and maybe even in our day to day lives, is he taught us the power of time. time
Corey
21:03
used to say time heals all wounds but i think it's more time dulls all senses you know yeah i was mad yesterday but i can't be fucked i don't know we're on to the next thing now there's a shutdown in america blah blah blah whatever christmas whatever my
Zain
21:14
my family yeah christmas
Corey
21:15
christmas it's i got stuff going on i'm not as mad today as i was yesterday the thing that seemed like a big deal yesterday well i've had two days to think about that now i guess i just you know it's just whatever like humans are amazing at our ability to just put up with bullshit you know we just adapt to bullshit so easily and and what he is really teaching us is sometimes all you need is that day and and look there are times we can look back on and say hey society be interesting things would be different if if other people had learned that lesson first and if they just try to get through the day yeah yeah i'm not defending actions of the people i'm going to talk about here but like al franken resigned as a senator because of some accusations against him i'm sure Sure, he regretted that two months later. Oh, yeah, just survived the day. Just survived the day. He could have, easily enough, right?
Corey
22:03
And I think that that's maybe, you
Corey
22:07
you know, to go back to the point about pushing on walls. In too many walks of life, people have learned when they push on the wall, nothing really happens. Just survive the day. Just
Zain
22:18
I want to get into the cabinet side of things, but I want to throw one more thing at you guys. guys. So with everything you guys have just told me about what Justin Trudeau has taught us over the course of the last couple of days, the rumor is that he's actually happy to step aside. He
Zain
22:32
He just needs until July, until the G7 is hosted on Canadian soil. Oh,
Zain
22:37
No, I've for sure heard that. I mean, for a year. We've been hearing this for a while. We heard that the G7 was in his mind. We heard we wanted to wait for Trump. And then to your point, Corey, yeah, it's been on his mind. it's like it would be a crowning achievement to be able to host the G7.
Zain
22:53
Carter, can you help me map that strategy out for this guy? Does it exist? He's taught us a lot about time. He's taught us a lot about the Liberal Party.
Zain
23:02
He's taught us a lot, as you guys have just said, about the political circumstance and how to think it through.
Zain
23:08
Can you, with all the lessons learned in your strategic thinking, carve out a path for this guy until July?
Carter
23:15
I mean, I think that you could, in some level, get to July. But how do you get to the next? Get me started. Well,
Carter
23:22
survive the day until July. I mean, his path is just to keep doing what he's been doing. He will listen with contrition when
Carter
23:33
when everybody is shitting on him.
Carter
23:36
And he'll say, you know, I'm very close. I'm about to make a decision. um i just need i just need to the end of this week and then he goes past the end of the week i mean he he's just one
Carter
23:48
he's just a one guy who just keeps pushing the limit and that's all he needs to do in order to stay in the job because unless someone starts to pull real triggers um he's not going to go anywhere so
Carter
23:59
so my thinking is um if i were him and and i wanted to stay till uh until july just stay till july um there is as we have said before on this podcast there is no mechanism to remove uh a sitting prime minister uh outside of an election or a non-confidence vote which would lead to an election so why
Carter
24:22
why why would he put himself in a position where he has to leave when frankly
Carter
24:27
frankly he just doesn't have to leave that's
Carter
24:30
that's that's his strategy that's the the whole thing mapped out as far as i'm concerned i
Zain
24:36
i like what carter's put on the table like the strategy to stay till july is to win every day or to ride out every day until july strategy to stay till july is to stay till july now of course cory there's a lot of bumps of the road or a couple of bumps of the road i shouldn't say a lot we don't know how how hard the liberal party itself and the caucus is going to come after in between now and then the jagmeet singh side of things and the ndp but add on to what carter said because i think it's actually a pretty interesting framework work and a simple one that that does ring true for me uh
Corey
25:06
look can he survive to july maybe
Corey
25:09
he could easily you could easily imagine him saying i can't do anything until after the inauguration we got to get through the tariff stuff you all know that you all understand that you all appreciate that in i'm sorry saying to caucus look he could say it to his caucus he could say it to his cabinet the political
Corey
25:25
pick your audience people of
Corey
25:27
yeah he say it broader than that that's what i'm getting to could he say what you just said to canadians well Well, let's pull back to that in a minute. But then when you get to February, you just say, okay, I'm willing to step down. So I've talked to the liberal executive, and we're going to have a leadership contest. It's going to be shorter than our standard, but, you know, still give us time to have a good, robust discussion about the future. So it'll be a five-month contest. That'll take us to around July, right, to be able to assist us with that contest. We will prorogue Parliament, and we'll bring them back in August. we know we've got an election in the fall but you know we've got work to do and we appreciate that we can't hold off the business of the people for that long so we'll prorogue until august and i'll continue to be prime minister until then and then there you go all of a sudden you're there two moves and you're there right and people can grumble about them but at that point there with
Zain
26:13
with a very tight window for the next person i
Corey
26:17
listen you're not the next person this is actually the point i want to get to okay get to it can trudeau survive
Carter
26:23
survive to july maybe uh
Corey
26:25
i am much less convinced about that and i don't mean in like a will we continue to be a country center i know yeah
Corey
26:31
will we be functioning as a country
Corey
26:33
by then and so that's uh i think that's the big question that our elected members should be thinking about as they look at him and moves that might allow him to stay until july do
Zain
26:42
do you think he would do that carter do you think he would like cory's plays out a nice scenario you put out a good frame
Zain
26:48
it seems doable right like none of what you either of you have said seems like crazy impossible possible like
Zain
26:55
we've been talking about this guy leaving for a year and a half and he's still here yeah so what's
Zain
27:00
another six months between friends right like seriously you're giving some
Corey
27:04
some generous rounding because it's more like eight months yeah yeah sure yeah we
Carter
27:07
we talked in in august we talked you know about about how hard it would be to accomplish this and give the new person enough time um
Carter
27:14
um you know cory's scenario involves proroguing parliament for uh
Carter
27:18
uh quite a period of time i'm not arguing with that i think that that would probably be the only way that it would would happen um you know i i think that the gg would would go along with that because that tends to be what ggs do um so i i don't know man like i i'm the
Carter
27:36
problem with it is what happens to the next person right like we're talking right now kim campbell and uh john turner situation uh where the the next person comes in and just gets clobbered but
Zain
27:48
but could you just you know to cory's point though is
Zain
27:52
is there that does the next person even inherit anything no it's over now the parties no no no but the point is that if the party's based on the individual that coalitions aren't transferred over to the next guy or the next woman right because the party is justin trudeau like
Zain
28:08
like what are you handing over like there's no infrastructure per se yeah there is i'm oversimplifying a bit for effect but not really right like is are you actually really losing using anything. Like, you could easily convince yourself, there's not a there there. I'm the there, and once I leave, it's someone else's thing. And they'll build it up, and I'm not handing over any quote-unquote assets, right? It's not like a party like yesteryear. Could you not convince yourself of that sort of self-talk, a version of it, maybe a more articulate version of what I'm just saying out loud here? Sure,
Carter
28:40
Sure, maybe you could have before Kamala Harris, right? And
Carter
28:43
And the debacle that was the federal election in the United States. I mean, maybe you could have
Carter
28:49
have talked your way into um the new leader forms their own new coalition anyways so i don't have to leave a coalition for them uh the leadership serves as a massive jumping off point and that person's going to be so much more popular uh
Carter
29:04
uh that it doesn't matter um
Carter
29:05
um right sure we could have told ourselves that lie um
Carter
29:11
we saw what happened to harris uh
Carter
29:13
uh she was was trapped
Carter
29:14
trapped almost from day one with
Carter
29:16
with trying to be trying to get
Carter
29:19
get out from under joe and to establish her own credibility and
Carter
29:22
and she and she failed if
Carter
29:24
if it was a failure so you
Carter
29:27
i'd like to say that it's possible but i just don't know that it is hogan
Corey
29:33
well it does seem to be a shift towards the american model where you have a campaign and you have a leadership campaign and that leadership campaign then becomes the general election campaign right it's not as though obama in 08 or hillary clinton in 2016 or joe biden in 2020 and
Corey
29:53
and frankly almost to an extent camel hair right they all took their leadership campaigns and they said okay now we're in charge of the general and we have access to some of these dnc resources but the heart of the campaign is is the leadership can't be right yeah
Corey
30:06
and so yeah you could make a case that this kind of works the timeline is kind of comparable to the americans instead of nominating somebody in august you're nominating somebody in july using their language not ours right yeah
Corey
30:21
and instead of an election in november you have one in october like it actually lines up pretty neatly to all of that the problem is we're not the american system and our fucking legislature the parliament of canada can't meet while all of this is going on because it just like that's how it all works like if you don't prorogue any
Corey
30:39
any opposition worth its salt is going to try to catch you flat-footed even jagmeet singh the slowest man in slow town is going to say this is probably my chance to wrong foot the liberals and go yeah and then you're going to be an election so you have to prorogue and if you prorogue that means you can't pass legislation and we can't prorogue at this particular moment we're in such a volatile place it's not just the united states although the united states alone is reason not to prorogue right we've got shit going on all over the place in the world and so the idea that we're not going to have parliament doing
Corey
31:12
doing jack shit while the liberals figure their stuff out for
Corey
31:15
for that long is very problematic i mean
Carter
31:17
mean if you were to do this you'd have to do the you know the
Carter
31:21
liberal leadership like there is no real way that
Carter
31:25
that that Justin Trudeau can hang on to
Carter
31:27
to July and not run through the next election. If he's going to hang on to July, he's hanging on all the way through. And let's be realistic.
Carter
31:37
This thing falls apart before then anyways. As long as they're, if they're in the House.
Zain
31:41
House. It's Per Poliev's G7, you're saying.
Carter
31:44
If we're in the House, the budget can't pass.
Carter
31:49
They can't pass the budget and still consider themselves to be an active opposition. And Jagmeet Singh has to know that on some level. I don't care how little money they have. At some point, he has to pull the pin, and the spring is better than the fall.
Zain
32:05
What if they call it the G7 and a half, they leave Jagmeet Singh, sit beside Trudeau the whole time? Yeah,
Carter
32:09
Yeah, that'd be great. And they hold hands and sing songs.
Zain
32:12
Maybe that gets them through March, huh? Okay, I enjoy this. I enjoy this. Corey, Cabinet Shuffle tomorrow.
Zain
32:19
Some of the names are out. I actually don't really particularly care per se. You've explained it well. There's a lot of holes. There's going to be a lot of new people. In some ways, this could be a cabinet to ensure that any leadership contestant is out of cabinet, right? Yeah. Stress test them, grill them. Are you going to do it? If you're not, get the fuck out. Stay the fuck in. We'll find you a role. If not, get the fuck out. You're not going to be in cabinet. So it'll be a nice sort of sunlight sort of thing tomorrow.
Zain
32:46
Strategically wise cabinet shuffle. Timing, rationale, and then, Connor, same to you. strategically wise or not so much? Corey, I'll start with you first. Yeah,
Corey
32:55
Yeah, this is the challenge, right? So you said people, if somebody is in cabinet right now and wants to run for the leadership, that's just going to be another hole to plug in a couple of days if he is thinking of resigning in the next couple of days, which is part of, I think, what's giving everybody a little bit of pause because you have to imagine some of the conversation with cabinet. And maybe there has been, maybe they're just keeping it very quiet. Maybe everybody's being very professional about it, but it would be, hey, are you planning to run if leadership opens up, if the answer is yes, I can't put you in cabinet, I hope you understand, right?
Corey
33:27
so if we see a couple of big names come out of cabinet tomorrow, that's probably a huge indication. You know, if there's some surprises in that sense, that's probably a huge indication that he is actually going and he is having those conversations. But if we don't see that, then I think that becomes more reason to doubt that
Corey
33:44
that this is all happening on a timeline that's imminent, right? I'm not saying it's not necessarily going to happen, but on an imminent timeline. So the timing is weird. Like you asked me, is it good timing or bad timing? It really depends on what he's trying to do. If he is trying to move his way towards a resignation of the leadership, I
Corey
34:05
I don't think it's great timing. But I still do believe you
Corey
34:09
you got to fill those holes.
Zain
34:10
Carter, strategically wise, what do you think? I
Carter
34:13
think that it's strategically wise if he wishes to stay on. But realistically, a cabinet shuffle in the first week or two of July or January, is a better is is better optically it gives him a better bump uh i mean who is paying attention at this particular moment in time outside of our our patreon subscribers um this is just not a moment in time when you're going to get a big bounce off of uh off of a cabinet shuffle now yeah he's maybe just trying to get a big bounce but you he needs something i mean nothing's worked to this point so uh
Corey
34:46
uh so i'm not a hundred percent convinced on that simply just based on our own little media empire here this has been our most like the one we did on monday most downloaded episode i think since the last general election like people are pretty keyed into politics right now so keyed
Carter
35:02
keyed into politics let's be honest about who our audience are come on now have you seen the discord have you read the discord nope
Carter
35:12
from time to time zane They do. Don't
Zain
35:14
Don't worry. They love you. My interest in myself is so low, I don't care. Okay.
Zain
35:23
You know, there's so many angles that are going to be covered about the shuffle, and I'm sure there's so many fun rabbit holes around who, and oh, Nate Erskine-Smith, isn't he a rebel, and he's taking on a cabinet position? That's crazy. Like, shit's going to happen. Here's what I find interesting, and I want to get into the strategy side of this, because there's a human element to this, Carter. Carter.
Zain
35:42
You're a conflicted liberal sitting on the back benches or a parliamentary secretary.
Zain
35:48
You know the ship is going down. Justin Trudeau calls you for a cabinet post.
Zain
35:54
What do you do? And I guess another way of asking this question is, is it better to leave in three days, three months, six months, eight months as a liberal cabinet minister or a liberal backbencher for your future ambitions and trajectory. And you might say, okay, it depends what your future trajectory is. Let's just assume it's not politics. And it's not politics within the liberal circle. And so there's like this interesting human question I'm grappling with that I'm sure many
Zain
36:22
over the last 36 hours have also been grappling with or those that have been anticipating, fuck, I might be getting a call. Like I may not have been part of the A team or the B team, but I'm certainly fucking starting five on the C team.
Zain
36:35
And the call is coming to me. yeah um you know no insult to some of these folks but you know yeah like that's the reality that we're in right now carter
Zain
36:44
carter how are you thinking about that like there's i know i've loaded like five questions to you there but there's a thought process you're in human element someone could call you for advice tomorrow carter be like fuck man trudeau's fucking i don't like him he's going down but should i say yes how would you think tell me how you would help someone think through this question you
Carter
37:03
get the title forever right
Carter
37:05
right you are now the honorable right you keep that that's a
Corey
37:09
actually though on a federal
Carter
37:10
federal level you keep the title
Corey
37:12
and you're a privy counselor forever yes so interesting okay you
Carter
37:15
you know um one day as a minister um buys you a lifetime a lifetime of of of some sort of prestige um and when you look at the hireability of someone who has been in cabinet versus the hireability of someone who has not been in cabinet cabinet. Most cabinet ministers, when they're done, find work.
Carter
37:35
Most people who've just been a backbench MP don't.
Carter
37:38
It's the ballgame. They start up their own businesses, they claim to be indigenous, and then they wind up getting tossed out of cabinet later. Jesus
Carter
37:48
What did I say?
Carter
37:49
Did I say something bad? My back's really sore. I may have said something I shouldn't have. But this is the model. This is what happens. People, if you're a cabinet minister, you're a a cabinet minister for life you've been in a part of a of an elite club and i suspect that that's
Carter
38:08
that's what most people are thinking when they get the telephone call yeah
Carter
38:11
yeah i may not have liked you yesterday but uh today you're putting me in cabinet so um
Carter
38:15
um i still don't like it but i'm going to take the i'll take the pay bump and
Carter
38:19
and i'll take the prestige bump and i will take the for the rest of my life bump so
Zain
38:24
so so i i that's a really interesting point cory i'll let you respond on in a second. I'll give it just a minor retort to you, but also to the general ether, which is that, okay, but also you are in the dying days of the Liberal Party agreeing
Zain
38:40
agreeing to be tethered even closer to Trudeau. How does that help your future prospects, so to speak? Corey, I'll let you get in on the same question. How would you start processing this?
Carter
38:49
Yeah, ministers get elected
Corey
38:52
Minister is better. Is minister for 12 minutes better? I don't know. I think that's actually what the question comes down to. And ultimately, if it was me, I would probably take it for a bunch of reasons. One is what Stephen talked about already, right? Like the honorific, the fact that you get to have this prestigious position. There are certain roles. We worked at a company where it was not nonpartisan, it was like multi-partisan, it was Hill and Knowlton, like there were everybody who had their like different political stripes, where that becomes almost a selling point. Like, oh, we've got a former liberal minister, we've got a former former conservative minister, we've got Jagmeet Singh. He's great, you know, whatever it is, right? And so there's some value in that.
Zain
39:34
We've got Brad Levine. That's right. Brad
Corey
39:37
Brad Levine catching strays here, which I'm here for. Brad is the best. He's a great guy. Brad's written a book once. Yeah.
Corey
39:44
Yeah, he did write a book. We were at his book launch. I was actually. Were you guys? No, we weren't invited to the book launch. Wasn't I at the book launch? You
Corey
39:50
You might have been there, Carter. I don't know why I wasn't invited to the book launch.
Carter
39:53
It was way before you. you
Corey
39:55
it was like it predated you as a human yeah pre
Corey
39:58
was it a good book launch no
Carter
40:02
he read from it stumbled over some of the sentences
Corey
40:08
jesus christ uh okay but
Corey
40:12
but also it is more money right being a cabinet minister is like a ninety thousand dollar pay bump so you do that for nine months for
Zain
40:20
for 12 minutes yeah okay well Well, but you
Zain
40:22
it for nine months
Corey
40:23
it's going to go to the end. It's real.
Corey
40:25
That's not insignificant. Short
Zain
40:25
Short term, it's real, for sure.
Corey
40:27
But then on the downside, you are now more closely tied to it. And do people care as much if you were cabinet minister for 12 minutes? Like, I think that's something that people will think about and worry about. But at the end of the day, how do you say no to being a minister of the crown? Like, that's a really important job. You can do a lot of good in that job. If you're there for the right reasons, you take it. If you're there for the wrong reasons, you take it. so i just don't know how you don't take it
Zain
40:53
it exactly carter carter this cory phrases it interesting i just don't know i just don't know how you don't take it right cory what you just said you're yeah give me a reason why you don't take it carter give
Zain
41:05
give me a solid strategic reason why you don't take it and cory i'm gonna challenge you to do the same you're
Carter
41:10
you're going to literally do something to cause the prime minister to resign you're going to take an action like resigning uh moving out of caucus uh you have decided that the for the best interest of the party for the best interest of the country you have to act that
Carter
41:26
that is basically the only isn't
Zain
41:27
isn't it better just to take the the ministership and then resign to have more maximal impact carter i think like you could but taught me you've taught me well carter yeah is that what you do jesus
Carter
41:38
jesus zane even i wouldn't do that um yeah i mean yeah
Zain
41:42
yeah yeah for sure oh yeah i'll be your minister of whatever the fuck yeah then resign in 12 minutes later oh
Carter
41:49
oh i guess you 11
Zain
41:50
11 minutes 11 minutes later because the position is 12 minutes yeah sorry yeah
Carter
41:54
don't know i i i i would i would be reluctant
Carter
41:57
reluctant to do that you
Zain
41:58
you you gave me an honest answer and and you also uh for the first time uh put down some guardrails else uh cory give me a a reason why you actually wouldn't take it if
Corey
42:10
if you know that the job comes with a task that you are not prepared to do oh yeah that's a good right and
Corey
42:16
and obviously the big like yeah sure nixon wanted to make somebody the attorney general so they would fire a independent prosecutor right and that
Corey
42:25
that is that's the most extreme manifestation of it but if it was hey hey, I need you to be environment minister. And as environment minister, your job is to help me dismantle all environmental protections because we've decided they're political poison and we're replacing political protections with a GST rebate.
Corey
42:45
Maybe you're just not morally there, right? So like everybody, I hope everybody in that job has a moral red line. And if you are going to be asked to do something that exceeds that moral red line, you need to know that. And political parties are big and they're diverse. And you might be totally comfortable in the party in one context and totally uncomfortable in another, and if they put you in the one where you're uncomfortable, you need to be honest with yourself.
Zain
43:05
Carter, anything else you want to talk about about the cabinet? I
Zain
43:08
Do you want to get into some of the names, or does that interest you at all? It doesn't to me, but I'm curious where you want to go. It
Carter
43:13
It doesn't interest me at all. I mean, are
Carter
43:15
are we going to even remember these names when it's all over? Well, okay,
Zain
43:18
okay, so let me put it this way. When this is announced tomorrow, one thing we'll be looking for is to see who's not in cabinet and the indication of a leadership, like who's got leadership ambitions. missions but that one thing is clear what else will you be looking for cory anything
Zain
43:32
anything else that you feel like is going to be of strategic significance that might not on the surface outside of like the standard regionality gender like uh you know gender might be interesting like has he fully abandoned the the 50 50 2015 model and it's just like plugging holes who gives a fuck white men everywhere right like there could be that um who
Zain
43:50
right like it could be i'm i'm not saying it is uh what what else are you gonna be looking for tomorrow and how you process processes well
Corey
43:57
yes you said the big one for me is are there people leaving who you wouldn't necessarily think are leaving that
Corey
44:04
that are because he said as well it's people who might not be willing to run again although i'm not sure if that's entirely the case anymore it
Corey
44:10
it seems like some of the names going into cabinet i was under the impression we're not going to run again but i
Corey
44:16
guess point on the side of maybe this is a caretaker cabinet right but yeah if there's somebody leaving that was unannounced even without leadership ambitions and you're like oh oh, that's interesting. Like, they're just leaving, leaving. That'll tell us something. And then I think also whether there are any changes to the portfolios, because if it's just the same portfolio, it's a lot easier for me to believe it's caretaker. If he's creating a new fucking portfolio, something along the lines of like that middle class one that they've got there or they've had,
Corey
44:47
okay, well, that's not the sign of somebody who's about to leave. So I'd be looking for the structure of cabinet too.
Corey
44:51
Carter, anything else to add?
Carter
44:52
I think the breadth of the changes, You know, so are they doing, like,
Carter
44:57
like, are they plugging holes or are they making wholesale changes? And if they're making wholesale changes, then he's not going anywhere.
Carter
45:04
So that's what I'd be looking for.
Zain
45:08
There's one more thing I want to throw to you guys about as it relates to cabinet. It's not so much cabinet as much as it's one person. And this will sound like a very flip, like simple question. But there is a strategic element to this that I find really interesting. And the question is this, why is Dom LeBlanc loved so much?
Zain
45:25
just by the prime minister but like by everybody like have you met i mean he's super charming like have you met him do you know a couple of times yeah yeah like and i know that's part of the answer but there's the competence angle here like there's there's something that this guy's doing politically that
Zain
45:40
that even in this unbelievably hyper polarized fuck trudeau fuck the conservatives fuck chuck mead saying fuck everything environment this guy both punches is through and is well respected and well liked so i'm telling you this sounds like a flip question like because there's some obvious reasons charming etc but carter what's what's this person doing right that is might be a portable lesson strategically and politically why is don leblanc like so much i
Carter
46:09
mean is it hard to dislike the guy who's the best friend of the prime minister i mean yes it is i think it is hard to dislike that yes i think that it's it's it's this guy is He's powerful. He knows he's powerful, but he doesn't act particularly like he's powerful. That's an interesting point. He is the key to a lot of people's potential success because I suspect they think that a kind word from Dominic and all of a sudden you're in cabinet or a not so kind word from him and all of a sudden you're not in cabinet. it. He is seen to be the prime minister's best friend in government, and that's going to make it easy for people to like him, because they have to. Because they have to, Zane. That's why people like people.
Zain
46:55
Carter, don't undercut your own points. I think you said something very interesting. I'll get to Corey in a second. Talk to me about powerful but doesn't act powerful. I know what you mean by that, but why is that actually important? Because Justin Trudeau is powerful powerful and acts powerful yeah
Zain
47:11
yeah right if i if we're going with a simple two by two like on this why does something like that appeal and why does something like that punch through what like walk me through it from like a strategic level well
Carter
47:22
i think that in politics they're the
Carter
47:26
the answer and like how do people answer your calls is
Carter
47:30
is one of those big questions do people answer your calls and what happens if they answer them and i think that george that uh that dominic leblanc is is someone that answers the
Carter
47:41
the telephone calls of the people around him, shakes their hands when he's going into cabinet, spends
Carter
47:45
spends time doing the work of managing those relationships. I don't know Dominic LeBlanc very well. I don't think he
Zain
47:53
he and I would recognize
Carter
47:54
recognize each other on the street. But the reputational element is that he's just someone who's always
Carter
48:01
always willing to interact. And I think that that buys a lot. But I
Carter
48:05
I think there's other ministers that
Carter
48:07
that you have to work really hard, you
Carter
48:09
know, and I've done this a couple of times just to get someone's
Carter
48:14
You feel like you have to, you
Carter
48:16
you know, take your shirt off and wave it above your head just to even get them to look in your direction.
Zain
48:23
Some interesting points there. Always willing to interact, powerful but not necessarily acting powerful. You have any strategic reasons why Dom is so
Zain
48:32
so well-liked, so well-respected, punching through in this hyper-polarized environment?
Corey
48:36
I mean, he knows how to handle political power. I think Stephen's point is actually the right one. And it's like somebody who, like his, you know, his father was the governor general, right? Like, if somebody grew up with money, they kind of have a comfort with money that many of the rest of us will never have, because there's always been like a, you know, a scarcity component to it that just doesn't exist. He's kind of always had political power. And he was elected first in 2000, as
Corey
49:05
as we forget. So he's also a very
Corey
49:07
very long-serve MP, and he has done a good job of maintaining and curating the network over time. And never seeming, like, ambitious, but never overly ambitious, right? Like, never, like, I'm out to get you, House of Cards style. And so I think that's important. I think that that matters. And he's just been doing it for a quarter of a century at this point. He's got a good handle on it. But for you, Corey, are these
Zain
49:30
these like lessons to empower others with? Like ambitious, but not overly ambitious, like, you know, knowing how to handle power, like, these are interesting things, like, or do you feel like it only applies to someone with his lack of a better term, history and pedigree?
Corey
49:47
I don't think those things hurt. I do think it's trainable by and large, but also it's where you are. That's the same attitude as somebody who's a powerful player in cabinet would feel maybe just downright aloof as a prime minister. Right.
Corey
50:03
And so, he's in a very sweet spot, right? Where he's perceived as somebody with a ton of authority, not necessarily seeing himself as the next guy, although maybe, who the hell knows, right? Maybe he decides to run if it all opens up. I have some rumors.
Corey
50:17
Yeah. But because he's seen so closely to Trudeau, I don't think he's necessarily, you know, seen as, I mean, he's not seen as disloyal, and he's not seen as overly loyal, because he far predates Justin Trudeau, right? And I think that those two things matter, too. Good
Zain
50:34
Good analysis. Let's move on to our over-under, our lightning round. Stephen Carter, this is where we ask you questions that allow you to go as long or as short as you want, because you can control— I thought we did that in the lightning
Carter
50:43
lightning round, when Corey went for 40 fucking minutes on one of his answers.
Zain
50:47
Yeah, no, Corey doesn't have to follow the rules because Kathleen Petty at the CBC loves them. She said he was very good at Alberta. You know, I
Carter
50:55
I don't get calls to go on the live shows. She
Zain
50:57
She hosts two shows now. I think she's going to take over the entire radio station. I'm
Zain
51:01
She's going to edge people out there. She's doing two. She went from zero to two. And you know what's next?
Corey
51:09
Corey, that's what's... Yeah, I've got a two-year-old, so he's learning how to count. This is good. This
Carter
51:13
This is good stuff.
Zain
51:15
Carter, the Alberta NDP. have won the lethbridge west by election overrated or underrated go a bit long if you want to on this i
Carter
51:23
i think it's pretty well rated i think that uh you know there was i i certainly was skeptical that they were going to win they wound up winning by a significant amount uh that tell me
Zain
51:32
me why you're skeptical by the way just lay the groundwork for your skepticism because i think that's important uh and then yeah new democratic
Carter
51:39
democratic operatives were optimistic and that just unnerved me i was completely thrown by that i didn't know what to do with it and uh i i thought
Carter
51:49
thought that meant that they were probably deluded and
Carter
51:51
and i don't think that was a wrong interpretation i think that that was the correct interpretation but it just turned out that this one time the spun the spin of the dice uh landed right on their on their numbers yes
Zain
52:01
yes spin of the dice indeed yeah
Carter
52:03
yeah i don't know uh i don't i'm tired did i mention i'm not feeling great uh but i'm here
Zain
52:08
here it's back pain yeah yeah for sure it's
Carter
52:11
it's back pain and uh so bottom line uh i was skeptical i was wrong in that skepticism they did win and they won uh mightily um
Carter
52:20
um that's a good sign like nenshi has been hit with a barrage of negative and
Carter
52:26
and for him to uh be able to hold on in in the face of that barrage of negative um with
Carter
52:33
with a candidate that was well known in lethbridge i mean i don't think that rob Bob was
Carter
52:37
was certainly an unknown.
Carter
52:40
So I think that, you
Carter
52:42
you know, there's turned out to be a fairly good result,
Carter
52:46
result, a very good result for Nahad Nenshi.
Zain
52:50
Mid-December, late-December election, Corey, students are out of town for the most part, at least a portion are. And they win this by-election, similar-ish, just slightly less than Shannon Phillips' numbers, which were about 11-ish points, if I'm not mistaken. it was very
Zain
53:06
very okay very very the same overrated underrated in your mind uh
Corey
53:10
uh i'm kind of with carter on the it's rated pretty right i like him i don't know if i would say i was skeptical i was i've got the text to
Carter
53:18
to prove it what's gonna happen
Carter
53:20
them on the discord well
Corey
53:21
well you can because i think i said i don't know what the hell's gonna happen i'm
Carter
53:25
i'm gonna cut that one
Carter
53:26
off because then afterwards you say i'm against it yeah
Corey
53:29
i'm against it i'm against it but the reason reason why i was a little bit skeptical was it does feel like the overall vibe in the province the overall thrust the limited polling that we have seen come through shows that there's not a lot of trouble for daniel smith right now and so i thought if that is if that is accurate and if that's representative uh at the writing level too well then it doesn't take an awful lot subtract a popular incumbent very talented incumbent and shannon phillips right and yes Yes, Rob is well-known, and Rob's a great guy, but you subtract Shannon from the equation, you just lose a couple of points to the government on the overall level
Corey
54:05
level of the tide, so to speak, well then, yeah, then all of a sudden you're in a lot of trouble, and then it looks like maybe you could lose it, right? I also thought that the UCP would throw a lot at it, and while it's true that Lethbridge West is a battle, or like a, I can't call it a battleground, whatever, a fortress for for the NDP.
Corey
54:25
That's not true of basically any other geography around the area, right? And so it did seem to me that the UCP were better positioned to pull resources in than the NDP were at that particular moment. So that all weighed on the like, geez, I don't know, man, that seems like I wouldn't be shocked if the NDP lost it. Now, they didn't. They won it and they won it by just as much. And that matters because that tells us at the very least, the one data a point we have suggests that Nahid Nenshi can hold the Notley Coalition, which for me was not a given in any way, shape or form. And especially when we throw in all of those other things I've talked about, I think that that's pretty good. And it's to say nothing of that province-wide advertising campaign about Nahid Nenshi going on.
Corey
55:08
I'm curious to talk to some people who were doing it, who can talk a little bit about the local dynamics versus the provincial dynamics and and really download for me what they think happened. Because I'm also curious how much Danielle Smith's Team USA approach, and I'm not being charitable to her here, but seeming to be the premier who was most willing to play ball with Donald Trump, might have also played a little bit of a part here. So I'm curious. And so more to be discovered and more to be heard on this.
Zain
55:39
Congratulations to the NDP, Carter. Look at that. The
Zain
55:41
The ground game came through.
Carter
55:44
Look at that, hey? Who
Carter
55:45
Who would have expected?
Zain
55:50
I was skeptical. That's what I call comedic timing. Congrats to all who worked on that campaign. Stephen Carter. Blah,
Zain
55:56
Overrated or underrated? Underrated.
Zain
55:59
The Trudeau PMO was caught by surprise of Christopher Freeland's resignation. The new reporting has come out from sources saying, yeah, we didn't actually fucking think this would happen after we told her three days in advance that we wanted to pre-fire her.
Zain
56:12
Overrated or underrated, this story?
Carter
56:14
Underrated. I mean, it just reinforces how incompetent the prime minister's office is. Could you imagine even allowing that story to go out? Yeah, we were totally fucked. I have no idea what happened. I was
Carter
56:26
was just completely caught off guard. I don't know what happened. And we cried together and it was sad. Like, what the fuck? Like, at least pretend to have a degree of professionalism. it was you know we we we we thought it was a risk but we thought it was a risk worth taking uh we we owed it to christia to be up front with her on our plans um no
Carter
56:50
no i mean she got us totally with our pants down oh that's the worst thing that's ever happened to me i don't even know what's gonna happen fucking
Carter
56:57
fucking morons okay i'm done okay
Zain
57:00
okay that's good yeah cory how to overwrite a podcast
Carter
57:04
podcast i get to do voices in is a good podcast that's what
Zain
57:06
what it's a good day you just lead it to whatever you want to do or a cop is surprised overrated underrated yeah
Corey
57:11
yeah i i 100 agree with everything steven said it's it's embarrassing for them that the story is a real thing right well look they walked through the woods last night and got frostbite on their dick and they're totally shocked shocked
Corey
57:25
how could this happen i was just so crazy that that we fired her and then she She fucking quit?
Corey
57:35
And you know what? She didn't tell us right away? We couldn't see it coming. Who could see that train coming? You don't want to see it. Okay, okay.
Zain
57:46
pretty good. You know what? I'll give you another scenario to voice off on. Okay. When you guys realized, so we recorded on the day that she resigned, but we still didn't get a chance to get the full depth of the reporting that was coming out by by by the journalists and one of
Zain
58:01
of the pieces that was revealed i believe the next morning cory i'll stick with you on this was um that
Zain
58:07
that this was done by zoom call yeah
Zain
58:14
i can't believe i'm saving this until whatever minute this is yeah
Zain
58:20
this this pre-firing uh was done by zoom call because there were different parts of the country the pm and the uh yeah uh and the and the deputy pm the finance minister and then what set her off according to reporting was the chief of staff katie telford spending that weekend in new york uh and a picture of that on instagram really
Corey
58:40
really just kind of that's
Corey
58:41
that's amazing i didn't actually hear that which accelerated things
Zain
58:43
things i guess was was was the implication yeah
Corey
58:46
yeah well we would like we talked about the fact that uh telford was in new york the the weekend before four and and we didn't bring it up on this pod
Corey
58:53
but it's not because we know
Corey
58:55
all that well but we were saying like wow that's crazy that's just nuts that the chief of staff left they thought that they were that stable yeah yeah
Zain
59:03
yeah yeah exactly carter yeah i mean reactions to the zoom call uh
Zain
59:06
uh and feel free to add your voices in here it'd be
Carter
59:08
be really i have
Carter
59:10
have no voices for zoom call
Carter
59:13
uh hello hello can you hear me um no the zoom call you know what i actually i'm not too fussed by the zoom call and the reason is that we do live in a modern society where people are across the country at any given time when when you appoint someone or unappoint someone to cabinet you're often just doing it via telephone uh the zoom would be uh you know just the next level of technology uh okay so that
Carter
59:37
can see it doesn't bother me nearly as much as i mean i wanted to i wanted to bother me but
Zain
59:42
but you're an intellectually honest person i like that about you cory you You sometimes are not. So
Zain
59:48
tell me why this
Corey
59:48
this bothers you significantly. I
Corey
59:50
I mean, it does bother me. You remember the 2009 movie Up in the Air? Oh,
Corey
59:54
Dave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Dave. Sorry, Dave. Dave. Dave. Up
Carter
59:58
Up in the Air.
Zain
1:00:00
Kevin? Anne Hathaway. And Anna Kendrick. And Anna Kendrick. Wrong, wrong, wrong
Zain
1:00:06
white woman. Yeah, yeah.
Carter
1:00:08
That's right. That was my bad.
Corey
1:00:10
That was one of the big hinge points about how they go around firing people, and now Now they were potentially going to have to fire people on a screen and how outrageous that was. And I do still actually believe that it is outrageous to fire somebody over a screen if it can be avoided. But also, it's not. So this is why I think it's egregious again.
Corey
1:00:28
A, I still do not believe it needed to happen on that day. And geez, I don't know. Is there a time you're going to be in the same place as her? Fucking how about the Monday you're all going to be delivering this FES, right? Like, come on. Like there was a lot of opportunity. There was no reason
Carter
1:00:44
reason to do it on Zoom. Corey is correct. This was fucking stupid.
Zain
1:00:49
one thing it does prove was that Friday was purely deliberate. Yeah. Right? That there was going to be Monday, but it had to happen on the Friday for some reason for them. It wasn't like Friday or Monday, both are equally good. No, no, no. Friday was chosen, and the hurdle of, you guys aren't even in the same place, was solved by technology. Someone had
Corey
1:01:10
in there. It's great. It's a great point. You know, and so like, it wasn't like an incidental thing. It wasn't bumped into the hall. And she said, Hey, by the way, am I am I fired? You know, it didn't happen like that. Yeah,
Zain
1:01:20
that's what that kind of told me. Glad you guys added no voices to the mix. Corey, are
Zain
1:01:28
are we headed for a US government shutdown? Yes.
Corey
1:01:33
feels like it because they're they don't have anywhere near the number of votes to get through the republican package but this
Corey
1:01:40
this is kind of classic them lately it comes down to the 11th hour there are ways that they can stretch the money even beyond what they publicize because we're now at a point where yeah
Corey
1:01:52
yeah they know that they run out of money they have a little bit money and they're all calculating that already and say no but for real we run out of money yeah at this particular moment right there's
Corey
1:02:00
there's probably still money and so um we'll
Corey
1:02:04
we'll see i suspect given that the republicans control every branch of government going forward starting in january that if they have an ounce of sense they will find a way to avoid this shutdown so there'll probably be a shutdown now that i've said that
Carter
1:02:19
yeah i'm just like what the fuck an ounce of sense where do they find the ounce of sense is it in elon's little brain i
Zain
1:02:25
i don't know i think well
Carter
1:02:26
well he takes He takes to Twitter
Zain
1:02:26
Twitter and tells the speaker, we're not doing this. And guess what? We're not doing this, Carter. Yeah.
Carter
1:02:31
Yeah. Here we are. Here we are. This government is a shit show. And it would be better, I think, if we just shut it down for the duration. So I'm a big fan of just shutting it down. No Elon. No Vivek. No Donald Trump.
Carter
1:02:49
Just shut it down. Shut it down.
Zain
1:02:50
down. You want a four-year and one-month government shutdown. I
Carter
1:02:53
I am. I'm Martin Sheen in season... Dave.
Carter
1:02:58
Of Dave, yeah. In
Corey
1:03:00
Dave. Dave season. Season Dave of Westwick.
Carter
1:03:02
Yeah, saying, shut it down. And then the music comes in.
Zain
1:03:08
It's good. We would use the music if we could license it. But that's a wrap on episode 1842 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velge. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.